If you will, you can become all flame.Extra caritatem nulla salus.In order to become whole, take the "I" out of "holiness". सर्वभूतहितἌνω σχῶμεν τὰς καρδίας"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is." -- Mohandas GandhiY dduw bo'r diolch.

That's the nicest thing I can say at the moment. Thank you for those who are praying.

Logged

She's touring the facility/and picking up slack.--"For in much wisdom is much grief, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." Ecclesiastes 1:18--I once believed in causes too, I had my pointless point of view --Life went on no matter who was wrong or right

This is a dictator who ruled with an iron fist for, what, 40 years or so?

What bad thing did he do, to get assassinated by the Western nations?

He had built up a prosperous and modern nation, with good roads, education, and medical care, giving his people a high standard of living. But he committed two unforgiveable sins: he would not sign on to the international banking cartels which control the West, instead setting up an independent Libyan banking system. This kept oil monies in Libya, helping the people's standard of living but not enriching the banking magnates. Sin #2 was that he refused to allow the CIA to set up an Africom post inside Libya.

These two sins were why he had to die.

Of course, the West created a humanitarian catastrophe in Libya, including rendering military aid and financial aid to Al Qaeda, who then went lynching black people and leaving piles of their bodies in the streets; bombing civilians; and all the other murderous tokens of "Western humanitarian concern."

If anyone thinks the taking out of Gaddafi was a humane step, he needs his head examined!

Truly convoluted and speculative logic, Fr. Aidan. It must be interesting to live in your world though.

I'm quite familiar with propaganda efforts, nuances of situations and such, so I don't claim this to be clear-cut. Still, did you happen to miss all of the embarrassing reports of recent collaboration between the CIA and Qaddafi's regime? Do you deny that he was a reckless degenerate who did horrible things to the people he was "ruling" or deemed enemies? Do you also deny that there exists a resistance comprised of real live Libyans, many of whom were very distrustful of Western efforts to interfere or co-opt the movement?

I expect your response to be filled with simplistic, yet unprovable conspiracies and moral equivalency, accusing the West of murdering far more than Qaddafi ever did. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but when you end up defending people like Qaddafi and placing blame entirely on the West, you show an extraordinarily simplistic understanding of events (or obfuscation of facts), and resort to old-fashioned Western bogeyman tactics.

Note that I am not defending his killing, whether by Western nations or not, but some of your assertions need a bit of challenging.

Moral equivalency? Death, murders, lynching, and the infliction of suffering on innocent people, are bad no matter who's doing them. That's where your opinions and mine may part a bit.

It's illogical to say that because I mention how Gaddafi wouldn't let Africom put a command center in Libya, I therefore must be overlooking past collaboration between Gaddafi and the CIA. Not at all. One does not exclude the other.

There are more nuanced options than either championing someone or demonizing someone. I am neither championing nor demonizing Gaddafi, and this may upset some. I mention both his good and bad. Same with Saddam Hussein--Christians were much safer under his rule than they are under the current regime. That does not excuse his genocidal actions.

Genuine humanitarian actions, such as some things which were done in Darfur for those people, can mutually exist with inhumane atrocities, such as what we bankrolled in Libya.

We treat Al Qaeda with a lot of ambivalence. We will, under some conditions, fight them to the death. Under other conditions, such as in Libya, we arm them, fund them, give them military and tactical support, and vote to help them gain a voice in the United Nations. The "moral equivalence" is just what I'm decrying.

I agree with much in this post, and I try to hold the same opinions on death, murder, etc. as yours (pray for me when I fail to do so). I thought your original post attempted to exonerate Qaddafi of his actions, while demonizing the West. The clarification of your position was very helpful.

Truly convoluted and speculative logic, Fr. Aidan. It must be interesting to live in your world though.

I'm quite familiar with propaganda efforts, nuances of situations and such, so I don't claim this to be clear-cut. Still, did you happen to miss all of the embarrassing reports of recent collaboration between the CIA and Qaddafi's regime? Do you deny that he was a reckless degenerate who did horrible things to the people he was "ruling" or deemed enemies? Do you also deny that there exists a resistance comprised of real live Libyans, many of whom were very distrustful of Western efforts to interfere or co-opt the movement?

I expect your response to be filled with simplistic, yet unprovable conspiracies and moral equivalency, accusing the West of murdering far more than Qaddafi ever did. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but when you end up defending people like Qaddafi and placing blame entirely on the West, you show an extraordinarily simplistic understanding of events (or obfuscation of facts), and resort to old-fashioned Western bogeyman tactics.

Note that I am not defending his killing, whether by Western nations or not, but some of your assertions need a bit of challenging.

No disrespect, but it is tough to take Fr. Aidan seriously, it seems as if he and another internet Orthodox apologist for totalitarian states share their news sources. I am not going to link there, but most know what I am talking about. BTW, I feel this way after reading his clarification, which I thank him for.

Truly convoluted and speculative logic, Fr. Aidan. It must be interesting to live in your world though.

I'm quite familiar with propaganda efforts, nuances of situations and such, so I don't claim this to be clear-cut. Still, did you happen to miss all of the embarrassing reports of recent collaboration between the CIA and Qaddafi's regime? Do you deny that he was a reckless degenerate who did horrible things to the people he was "ruling" or deemed enemies? Do you also deny that there exists a resistance comprised of real live Libyans, many of whom were very distrustful of Western efforts to interfere or co-opt the movement?

I expect your response to be filled with simplistic, yet unprovable conspiracies and moral equivalency, accusing the West of murdering far more than Qaddafi ever did. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but when you end up defending people like Qaddafi and placing blame entirely on the West, you show an extraordinarily simplistic understanding of events (or obfuscation of facts), and resort to old-fashioned Western bogeyman tactics.

Note that I am not defending his killing, whether by Western nations or not, but some of your assertions need a bit of challenging.

No disrespect, but it is tough to take Fr. Aidan seriously, it seems as if he and another internet Orthodox apologist for totalitarian states share their news sources. I am not going to link there, but most know what I am talking about. BTW, I feel this way after reading his clarification, which I thank him for.

They say Mussolini made the trains run on time......

I'm not sure how accurate an assumption this is. Oh well. Say what you want about Mussolini and his trains, but his men were the best dressed in WWII. If you don't believe me, check out the Bersaglieri. And the Alpini as another case in point.

- Note the one possible exception being the men in ARMIR. They looked nice, but were dressed inappropriately for the Russian winter.

My point is that it does happen, and we have just seen it happen, that "our" side will commit equal or greater atrocities, but it's all "humanitarian" and "just" and we all feel smug and satisfied, as if we had a moral high ground.

Let's grant that, on balance, we do have a moral high ground. Even so, we won't keep it for long unless we examine the wrongness or rightness of "our" own actions, on some scales of justice OTHER than those devised and "sold" to the public by corrupt corporate media.

As St. Augustine of Africa said, "Wrong is wrong even if everybody's doing it, and right is right even if nobody's doing it."

It remains highly problematic that we would support Al Qaeda militants militarily, financially, and politically, helping them to take Libya away from Gaddafi, so we won't have to use our own troops. It's not as if there was some humanitarian reason to go in and topple Gaddafi. And then our actions created a humanitarian disaster. All the lynchings, murders, bombings of civilians--we weren't protecting anyone from anything. We were doing a regime change.

Would we Americans, even if dissatisfied with a particular President being in office, welcome some other nation coming in and toppling our form of government, committing war atrocities against our people, including mass murders and racial lynchings, until they could capture our President, execute him in cold blood, and put their own favored thug in power instead?

There is such a thing as war crimes. There is such a thing as morality. This has NOTHING to do with Mussolini making trains run on time. There's blood on our hands. And as a nation we really don't much care, because we are losing our conscience.

Truly convoluted and speculative logic, Fr. Aidan. It must be interesting to live in your world though.

I'm quite familiar with propaganda efforts, nuances of situations and such, so I don't claim this to be clear-cut. Still, did you happen to miss all of the embarrassing reports of recent collaboration between the CIA and Qaddafi's regime? Do you deny that he was a reckless degenerate who did horrible things to the people he was "ruling" or deemed enemies? Do you also deny that there exists a resistance comprised of real live Libyans, many of whom were very distrustful of Western efforts to interfere or co-opt the movement?

I expect your response to be filled with simplistic, yet unprovable conspiracies and moral equivalency, accusing the West of murdering far more than Qaddafi ever did. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but when you end up defending people like Qaddafi and placing blame entirely on the West, you show an extraordinarily simplistic understanding of events (or obfuscation of facts), and resort to old-fashioned Western bogeyman tactics.

Note that I am not defending his killing, whether by Western nations or not, but some of your assertions need a bit of challenging.

No disrespect, but it is tough to take Fr. Aidan seriously, it seems as if he and another internet Orthodox apologist for totalitarian states share their news sources. I am not going to link there, but most know what I am talking about. BTW, I feel this way after reading his clarification, which I thank him for.

They say Mussolini made the trains run on time......

I'm not sure how accurate an assumption this is. Oh well. Say what you want about Mussolini and his trains, but his men were the best dressed in WWII. If you don't believe me, check out the Bersaglieri. And the Alpini as another case in point.

- Note the one possible exception being the men in ARMIR. They looked nice, but were dressed inappropriately for the Russian winter.

My point is that it does happen, and we have just seen it happen, that "our" side will commit equal or greater atrocities, but it's all "humanitarian" and "just" and we all feel smug and satisfied, as if we had a moral high ground.

Let's grant that, on balance, we do have a moral high ground. Even so, we won't keep it for long unless we examine the wrongness or rightness of "our" own actions, on some scales of justice OTHER than those devised and "sold" to the public by corrupt corporate media.

As St. Augustine of Africa said, "Wrong is wrong even if everybody's doing it, and right is right even if nobody's doing it."

It remains highly problematic that we would support Al Qaeda militants militarily, financially, and politically, helping them to take Libya away from Gaddafi, so we won't have to use our own troops. It's not as if there was some humanitarian reason to go in and topple Gaddafi. And then our actions created a humanitarian disaster. All the lynchings, murders, bombings of civilians--we weren't protecting anyone from anything. We were doing a regime change.

Would we Americans, even if dissatisfied with a particular President being in office, welcome some other nation coming in and toppling our form of government, committing war atrocities against our people, including mass murders and racial lynchings, until they could capture our President, execute him in cold blood, and put their own favored thug in power instead?

There is such a thing as war crimes. There is such a thing as morality. This has NOTHING to do with Mussolini making trains run on time. There's blood on our hands. And as a nation we really don't much care, because we are losing our conscience.

I will grant you part of your argument Father, and I truly ask your forgiveness if I misunderstood your argument to be one of condoning oppression.

What if, however, the victorious Allies had not become so self-absorbed after the first war and had somehow intervened to stop Hitler and the rearmament of Germany prior to the Anschluss? Perhaps 'what if' is a dangerous term to use in history, yet the Holocaust and the horrors of Stalingrad and elsewhere might not have occurred? I don't know, but in realpolitik things are never as cut and dry as they appear in the hypothetical.

I am troubled by the moral implications of the pre-emptive war basis for foreign policy and our decisions of the past ten years do merit careful review and study.

I can say however, as someone from upstate New York and as a graduate of Syracuse University - the school where so many of Qaddafi's terror victims from the Lockerbie attack were attending when their innocent lives were crushed by the terror bombs of his minions - that the world is a better place without him and without Sadaam Hussein.

What I believe is especially difficult now is that there are 240 different tribes in Lybia, and perhaps all of them will want to become dominant...

No, not much agitation there. Qadhdhaafi's tribe was, for instance, rather insignificant. Libya has a rather long history of movements overriding tribal affliation, or rather, tribes acting in the context of movements not bound by tribal affiliation.

Logged

Question a friend, perhaps he did not do it; but if he did anything so that he may do it no more.A hasty quarrel kindles fire,and urgent strife sheds blood.If you blow on a spark, it will glow;if you spit on it, it will be put out; and both come out of your mouth

that the world is a better place without him and without Sadaam Hussein.

Really? I think that there are quite a few Iraqi Christians who would disagree. Far more than the few "victims" that went your school.

That is a pathetic statement in the way you phrased it. Do you know any of your fellow Countrymen who suffered as a result of the actions of foreign terrorists? Maybe you do, and if you do and you still put those quotes around the word victim, there is little, very little that your conception of Orthodoxy has to do with mine and that of many others of us.